stream formed my best collecting-ground, and I daily wandered up and
down its shady bed, which about a mile up became rocky and precipitous.
Here I obtained the rare and beautiful swallow-tail butterflies, Papilio
aenomaus and P. liris; the males of which are quite unlike each other,
and belong in fact to distinct sections of the genus, while the females
are so much alike that they are undistinguishable on the wing, and to
an uneducated eye equally so in the cabinet. Several other beautiful
butterflies rewarded my search in this place, among which I may
especially mention the Cethosia leschenaultii, whose wings of the
deepest purple are bordered with buff in such a manner as to resemble
at first sight our own Camberwell beauty, although it belongs to a
different genus. The most abundant butterflies were the whites and
yellows (Pieridae), several of which I had already found at Lombock and
at Coupang, while others were new to me.
Early in February we made arrangements to stay for a week at a village
called Baliba, situated about four miles off on the mountains, at
an elevation of 2,000 feet. We took our baggage and a supply of all
necessaries on packhorses; and though the distance by the route we took
was not more than six or seven miles, we were half a day getting there.
The roads were mere tracks, sometimes up steep rocky stairs, sometimes
in narrow gullies worn by the horses' feet, and where it was necessary
to tuck up our legs on our horses' necks to avoid having them crushed.
At some of these places the baggage had to be unloaded, at others it was
knocked off. Sometimes the ascent or descent was so steep that it was
easier to walk than to cling to our ponies' backs; and thus we went up
and down over bare hills whose surface was covered with small pebbles
and scattered over with Eucalypti, reminding me of what I had read of
parts of the interior of Australia rather than of the Malay Archipelago.
The village consisted of three houses only, with low walls raised a few
feet on posts, and very high roofs thatched with grass hanging down to
within two or three feet of the ground. A house which was unfinished and
partly open at the back was given for our use, and in it we rigged up
a table, some benches, and a screen, while an inner enclosed portion
served us for a sleeping apartment. We had a splendid view down upon
Delli and the sea beyond. The country around was undulating and open,
except in the hollows, where there were some patches of forest, which
Mr. Geach, who had been all over the eastern part of Timor, assured me
was the most luxuriant he had yet seen in the island. I was in hopes of
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